Judge Dismisses Justin Baldoni’s $400 Million Countersuit Against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds

Judge Dismisses Justin Baldoni’s $400 Million Countersuit Against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds

Justin Baldoni – Blake Lively – Ryan Reynolds – Justin Baldoni’s $400 million defamation countersuit against Blake Lively has been formally ended by a judge.

On Friday, Oct. 31, U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Liman signed a new order, stating that Baldoni, 41, and his Wayfarer Studios co-plaintiffs had failed to file a further amended complaint after the court dismissed their case back in June.

The judge also said he’d contacted all parties on Oct. 17 to warn them that he’d be entering a final judgment to conclude the case. According to a document reviewed by PEOPLE, Lively, 38, was the only one to respond, asking the judge to declare the final judgment, but for her request for legal fees to remain active, which the judge agreed to.

The U.S. District Court didn’t immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE for additional information. PEOPLE has also reached out to reps for Lively and Baldoni for comment.

Baldoni’s setback is the latest twist in the It Ends with Us legal saga, which began in December when Lively sued him for misconduct on the set and a retaliatory smear campaign, claims which he has denied. Lively’s original lawsuit is ongoing.

As previously reported by PEOPLE, Baldoni’s $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist — which alleged extortion and defamation — was previously tossed out by the judge on June 9, as well as his $250 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.

Lively then shared a post on her Instagram Stories, in which she opened up about the “pain” she’d been caused by Baldoni’s countersuit.

“Like so many others, I’ve felt the pain of a retaliatory lawsuit, including the manufactured shame that tries to break us,” Lively wrote in the June 9 post. “While the suit against me was defeated, so many don’t have the resources to fight back.”

The actress added at the time that she was now “more resolved than ever to continue to stand for every woman’s right to have a voice in protecting themselves, including their safety, their integrity, their dignity and their story.”

“With love and gratitude for the many who stood by me, many of you I know. Many of you I don’t. But I will never stop appreciating or advocating for you,” she wrote, sharing a list of organizations for relevant resources and information.

Her lawyers also hailed the decision as a “total victory and a complete vindication” for the actress. In their statement after the dismissal news, Lively’s attorneys Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb noted, “As we have said from day one, this ‘$400 million’ lawsuit was a sham, and the Court saw right through it.”

Meanwhile, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE on June 10 that Lively and her team’s “predictable declaration of victory” was “false.”

Freedman’s statement included at the time, “This case is about false accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation and a nonexistent smear campaign, which Ms. Lively’s own team conveniently describes as ‘untraceable’ because they cannot prove what never happened.”

Pointing to a California law passed in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Judge Liman ruled in June that Lively’s sexual harassment allegations were legally protected and couldn’t be used as grounds for a defamation claim.

Furthermore, Baldoni and his fellow plaintiffs associated with production company Wayfarer Studios “have not alleged that Reynolds, [publicist Leslie] Sloane or the Times would have seriously doubted” Lively’s initial claims, which doesn’t prove they defamed Baldoni, the judge previously wrote.

The trial is set for March 2026.

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